Fingerprint sensing technology has become widespread in use and is often used to provide secure access to sensitive electronic devices and/or data. Generally, capacitive fingerprint sensors may be used to determine an image of a fingerprint through measuring capacitance through each pixel of a capacitive sensor. The higher the capacitance, the nearer the surface of an adjacent or overlying finger to the pixel. Thus, fingerprint ridges provide a higher capacitance in an underlying pixel than do fingerprint valleys. There are other types of fingerprint sensors, such as optical sensors.
Typically, fingerprint sensors have been tied to relatively powerful computers, such as PCs or laptops, or incorporated in specialty devices specifically designed for fast processing and sufficient battery life of the scanner.
Portable user devices, such as smart phones and tablets, are more and more common, and include more and more features and functions. Such devices become more powerful and less battery intensive all the time, but still have relatively smaller computational resources and a constant concern over battery consumption rates.
Accordingly, there is a need for an improved functionality in highly mobile devices, and a need for a computationally efficient implementation of the improved functionality.